Uppsala Forum on Democracy, Peace and Justice at Uppsala University

Reminder: Call for Applications Deadline February 28
Uppsala Forum offers, for the final time ever, the opportunity to apply for funding for visiting fellowships and Seminar and Workshop funding.
For more information and submitting an application, please visit the Uppsala Forum Website.

Forskningsstöd - Uppsala universitet Uppsala Forum erbjuder möjlighet att söka medel för gästforskare, seminarier, workshops och forskningsansökningar. Det övergripande syftet är att främja internationalisering och tvärvetenskaplig forskning vid de enheter som ingår i Uppsala Forum-samarbetet.

Två veckor kvar till Forsskålsymposiet! Varmt välkomna till Humanistiska teatern den 28 november kl 13.15-16 för en föreläsning med årets hedersföreläsare Martin Kragh och ett efterföljande panelsamtal lett av Ulrika Knutson.

Forsskålsymposiet 2023 - Uppsala Forum för Demokrati, Fred och Rättvisa - Uppsala universitet Forsskålsymposiet 2023

Uppsala Forum Guest Lecture with Prof. Melody Valdini 25 Oct. - welcome!

The Inclusion Calculation: Why Men Appropriate Women's Representation with Prof. Melody E. Valdini - Uppsala Forum för Demokrati, Fred och Rättvisa - Uppsala universitet 2023-10-25 The Inclusion Calculation: Why Men Appropriate Women's Representation with Prof. Melody E. Valdini

Välkomna på föreläsning om Ukraina med Jörgen Elving den 20 september kl 15.15-17:
"The Russian invasion of Ukraine – Recent developments and its impact on neighboring countries". Mer information finns här https://www.uppsalaforum.uu.se/kalendarium/evenemang/?eventId=83582

First Uppsala Forum open lecture of this academic year is with Prof. Roberto Belloni (Trento) on the topic "Civil Society and Hegemonic Struggles in Bosnia-Herzegovina".
When: 30 August, 3.15 pm
Where: Brusewitzsalen 3312, Gamla torget 6, Uppsala
More info here:

"Civil Society and Hegemonic Struggles in Bosnia-Herzegovina" with Prof. Roberto Belloni - Uppsala Forum on Democracy, Peace and Justice - Uppsala University, Sweden 8/30/2023 "Civil Society and Hegemonic Struggles in Bosnia-Herzegovina" with Prof. Roberto Belloni

Open lecture: Russia's Worldview: Katechon and Atomic Orthodoxy with Prof. Maria Engström

May 30 at 15:15-17:00 - IRES library, Gamla torget 3, 3rd floor

Abstract
The presentation focuses on Christian messianism in contemporary Russian intellectual thought. The ‘conservative turn’ in Russian politics is associated with the return to the cultural and political ideologeme of Katechon, which is proposed by several right-wing intellectuals as the basis for the Russia’s new state ideology and foreign and security policy. The theological concept of Katechon (‘the withholding’) that protects the world from the advent of the Antichrist originates in the Byzantine Empire. In Russian tradition, this concept is presented in the well-known doctrine of Moscow as the Third Rome, dating back to the 16th century. The term ‘Katechon’ in contemporary Russian political discourse is relatively new and can be traced to the post-Soviet reception of Carl Schmitt’s political theology. The concept of Russia as Katechon is directly connected to the national security and defence policy, because it is used as the ideological ground for the new wave of militarization and anti-Western sentiment, as well as for Russia’s actions during the war in Ukraine. This analysis puts the internal political and cultural debate on Russia’s role in international affairs and its relations with the West into historical perspective and demonstrates the right-wing intellectual circles’ influence on the Kremlin’s new domestic and foreign policy.

Speaker bio
Maria Engström is Professor of Russian at Uppsala University, Sweden. Her research focuses on Russian neoconservative intellectual milieu, imperial aesthetics in contemporary Russian literature and art, late Soviet underground culture, post-Soviet utopian imagination, and the role of the Orthodox Church in contemporary Russian politics. She co-edited The Oxford Handbook of Soviet Underground Culture, Oxford University Press (2023) and Digital Orthodoxy: Mediating Post-Secularity in Russia (2015). Engström’s publications include articles ‘Re-imagining antiquity: The conservative discourse of ‘Russia as the true Europe’ and Kremlin’s new cultural policy’ (2020), ‘Visualizing the Conservative Revolution: Alternative Globalization and Aesthetic Utopia of ‘Novorossiia’’ (2018), and 'Contemporary Russian Messianism and New Russian Foreign Policy' (2014). Her current project ‘No(w)stalgia of Modernity: Neo-Soviet Myth in Contemporary Russian Culture’ (2020-2024) is supported by the Swedish Research Council.

Collecting the Scattered Knowledge. Towards an Encyclopaedia of the N**i Genocide of the Sinti and Roma in Europe.

Monday, May 15 at 15:15-17:00 // IRES library, Gamla Torget 3, Uppsala. There will be some refreshments after the seminar for those who attend in person.

Those who cannot attend the seminar in person, please join us via Zoom: https://uu-se.zoom.us/j/67907288304

The genocide of the Sinti and Roma became the subject of academic research only late. Among the general public, numerous contexts of persecution and crime, especially in their European dimension, are still largely unknown today. This is also due to the fact that knowledge is highly fragmented and language barriers prevent access to the international research literature. The project funded by the Federal Foreign Office, which will be available online in English from the end of 2023, counters the previous misrepresentation of the genocide with an encyclopaedic compilation of existing knowledge. The lecture will also provide information on current research developments in Germany.

Dr. Karola Fings is a historian at the Research Centre on Antigypsyism at the Department of History at Heidelberg University, where she heads the project "Encyclopaedia of the N**i Genocide of the Sinti and Roma in Europe". Since the late 1980s, she has published numerous studies on the N**i persecution of Sinti and Roma. In 2019, the digital edition "Voices of the Victims", which she curated, was launched in RomArchive. She was a member of the "Independent Commission on Antiziganism" set up by the Federal Government from 2019 to 2021 and is a member of the German delegation to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.

May 03 (15:15-17:00) - Hybrid Event - https://uu-se.zoom.us/j/63563112680

Romanian Roma Survivors' Recollections of 1942: Deportations to Transnistria

In this talk, Dr. Chirițoiu reflects on the deportation of Romanian Roma to the occupied territories of Transnistria during the Second World War. The discussion starts from recollections of the survivors of the deportation and that this generation’s memories of the past would disappear along with them. The discussion correlates the deportation to later waves of displacement the early 1990s and now those who migrated abroad due to discrimination and lack of opportunities. Even though each of these waves of uprooting and persecution differs from the others, when viewed from inside family and community life, their effects prolong one another and cause Roma to live under the threat of siege and displacement permanently.

Hybrid Event

In contemporary academia, political science, philosophy and economics are three clearly distinct disciplines with their own norms and identities. However, historically these three disciplines were closely integrated with each other, and studied jointly as “political economy”. Adam Smith and Karl Marx where both trained philosophers, who critiqued the institutions of their day from both political and economic perspectives. But during the last century these disciplines has become increasingly distinguished and specialized. Even if such specialization enables division of labor, it may also be problematic. Friedrich Hayek supposedly asserted that “Nobody can be a great economist who is only an economist – and I am even tempted to add that the economist who is only an economist is likely to become a nuisance if not a positive danger.” And similar critiques could be aimed against political scientists who are only political scientists, or political philosophers who merely generate normative ideals without concern for how people actually behave. This critique opens for a number of interesting questions and problems. How does the theoretical and normative perspective of philosophy relate to the more empirical and neutral perspectives of the social sciences? Why is it that these disciplines, which were historically integrated, is today increasingly separated? And how could we as researchers combine specialization with general understanding?This event will be hybrid via Zoom.

Abstract
In contemporary academia, political science, philosophy and economics are three clearly distinct disciplines with their own norms and identities. However, historically these three disciplines were closely integrated with each other, and studied jointly as “political economy”. Adam Smith and Karl Marx where both trained philosophers, who critiqued the institutions of their day from both political and economic perspectives. But during the last century these disciplines has become increasingly distinguished and specialized. Even if such specialization enables division of labor, it may also be problematic. Friedrich Hayek supposedly asserted that “Nobody can be a great economist who is only an economist – and I am even tempted to add that the economist who is only an economist is likely to become a nuisance if not a positive danger.” And similar critiques could be aimed against political scientists who are only political scientists, or political philosophers who merely generate normative ideals without concern for how people actually behave. This critique opens for a number of interesting questions and problems. How does the theoretical and normative perspective of philosophy relate to the more empirical and neutral perspectives of the social sciences? Why is it that these disciplines, which were historically integrated, is today increasingly separated? And how could we as researchers combine specialization with general understanding?

Speaker bios
Erik Angner, professor of philosophy at Stockholm University and the director of the university’s PPE program. He holds two PhDs, one in Economics and the other in History and Philosophy of Science, both from the University of Pittsburgh. He is the author of books such as How Economics Can Save the World (2023) and Hayek and Natural Law (2007).

Per Bylund, associate professor of entrepreneurship and Johnny D. Pope Chair in the School of Entrepreneurship at Oklahoma State University. With a special interest in the Austrian School of Economics, he competes with Knut Wicksell for the title as “the Swedish Austrian”, and is the recent editor to A Modern Guide to Austrian Economics (2022), and author of How to Think About the Economy (2022).

This event will be hybrid via Zoom.

Abstract
In contemporary academia, political science, philosophy and economics are three clearly distinct disciplines with their own norms and identities. However, historically these three disciplines were closely integrated with each other, and studied jointly as “political economy”. Adam Smith and Karl Marx where both trained philosophers, who critiqued the institutions of their day from both political and economic perspectives. But during the last century these disciplines has become increasingly distinguished and specialized. Even if such specialization enables division of labor, it may also be problematic. Friedrich Hayek supposedly asserted that “Nobody can be a great economist who is only an economist – and I am even tempted to add that the economist who is only an economist is likely to become a nuisance if not a positive danger.” And similar critiques could be aimed against political scientists who are only political scientists, or political philosophers who merely generate normative ideals without concern for how people actually behave. This critique opens for a number of interesting questions and problems. How does the theoretical and normative perspective of philosophy relate to the more empirical and neutral perspectives of the social sciences? Why is it that these disciplines, which were historically integrated, is today increasingly separated? And how could we as researchers combine specialization with general understanding?

Speaker bios
Erik Angner, professor of philosophy at Stockholm University and the director of the university’s PPE program. He holds two PhDs, one in Economics and the other in History and Philosophy of Science, both from the University of Pittsburgh. He is the author of books such as How Economics Can Save the World (2023) and Hayek and Natural Law (2007).

Per Bylund, associate professor of entrepreneurship and Johnny D. Pope Chair in the School of Entrepreneurship at Oklahoma State University. With a special interest in the Austrian School of Economics, he competes with Knut Wicksell for the title as “the Swedish Austrian”, and is the recent editor to A Modern Guide to Austrian Economics (2022), and author of How to Think About the Economy (2022).

Seminarium/book launch with Ludvig Beckman on the boundaries of democracy

On the 5 of April we are happy to welcome Ludvig Beckman (Stockholm University) to Uppsala Forum! Prof. Beckman will give a presentation on his recent book The Boundaries of Democracy: A Theory of Inclusion. Discussant: Jonas Hultin Rosenberg (UU). Welcome!

Time: 5 April, 15.15-17
Place: IRES Library, Gamla Torget 3, Uppsala (3rd floor)

Abstract
This book provides a general theory of democratic inclusion for the present world. It presents an original contribution to our understanding of the democratic ideal by explaining how democratic inclusion can apply to individuals in a variety of contexts: the workplace, social clubs, religious institutions, the family, and, of course, the state. The book explores the problem of democratic inclusion, what it means to be subject to de facto authority, how this conception translates into legal systems, and the relationship between territorial claims by the state, and law’s claim to legitimate authority.

Discussant for the book will be Dr.Jonas Hultin Rosenberg.

Speaker Bio
Ludvig Beckman is a professor in Political Science at Stockholm University. He participate in the research project "The Boundary Problem in Democratic Theory" that examines the principles of inclusion in the democratic demos. Who should have the right to participate in democratic decision-making? His past and current research focuses on fundamental problems in the relationship between public power and individual rights.

UPDATE: Due to unforeseen circumstances, the seminar in Romani Studies on March 30 (Thursday) is cancelled. The new date for the seminar will be announced separately. We apologise for any inconvenience.
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"Romanian Roma Survivors' Recollections of 1942: Deportations to Transnistria", presented by Dr. Ana Chirițoiu.

The seminar is part of a monthly seminar series in Romani Studies organized by The Hugo Valentin Centre, The Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies (IRES), The Department of Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology, and the Uppsala Forum.